Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 308: New Series, Saturday, November 24, 1849 — John Shaqi
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 308: New Series, Saturday, November 24, 1849Various
General
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 308: New Series, Saturday, November 24, 1849
Various
Periodicals
on smoothed plateaux of rock, the place thus acquiring from nature all
the benefit of a paved courtyard, as well as of a perfectly firm and
dry foundation. Often you can trace in these natural pavements the
primitive channellings and striæ, though hob-nails and wagon-wheels
have clattered over them for centuries.
The matter massed up against the smoothed valley-sides has all the
appearance of that of _moraines_ amongst the Alps. A moraine, as must
be known by many persons, is the accumulation of loose matter which
a glacier brings down in its course, and deposits at its base. The
matter seen here, as at the skirts of the Alpine glaciers, is a coarse,
pale, sandy clay, mixed with rough stones of all sizes up to many
tons--mixed confusedly--with here and there little nests of matter,
where the clay and sand have been separated and laid down by water.
Over this matter in some places are stratified sand and gravel, coming
to flat, terraced forms, like sea-beaches. These, however, are rare
objects. The tendency of the whole appearances, in an unprejudiced
mind, is to convey the idea that ice has been the cause of the
main phenomena. That water in any form could have produced them is
utterly inadmissible, though this was the supposition formed by the
first scientific observer, M. Sefstrom. Persons who have only read
descriptions of the appearances may think them explainable upon an
aqueous theory; but if they visit Sweden, and look at the surface with
their own eyes, they must, if open to conviction at all, see that no
such agent could have produced such effects. Only some agent applying
forcibly, pressingly, and with an equable, continuous motion--like a
plane going over a deal, or a plough in a furrow--could have so dressed
the original surface. Such an agent is ICE. The identity of the loose
matter with the moraines of existing glaciers points to the same
conclusion. I therefore believe, with M. Agassiz and others, that ice
has been the means of smoothing the surface of Sweden--ice on a scale
of grandeur beyond what we are accustomed to see; though how such a
glacial sheet was originated, and how it could move across the whole
irregular face of a large country, up hill and down hill, maintaining
over wide provinces one direction, I think it would be difficult to
explain. We perceive clearly the nature of the agent, and we see
this agent still at work upon the earth, though in a limited manner:
the only difficulty is as to the different physical circumstances on
which depended the magnitude of the phenomenon and the manner of its
application. The superficial arrangements of the loose matter speak of
a subsequent dip under water, a fact of which I shall have occasion to
show other evidences.
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